I looked at the lily ponds, frowning. "I thought Excalibur got given back to the Lady of the Lake, when Arthur died."
"That's right. Arthur told Sir Bedivere to take it to the nearest lake and chuck it in the water, and then the hand came up and caught the sword and waved it round three times, and took it under."
"And that happened over there?"
He nodded. "That's what they tell me."
As he spoke, something moved at the edge of my vision, and Christopher noticed it, too. He squinted to see better. "That's not our friend from St. Govan's, surely?"
I'd wondered that, too, when I'd glimpsed the dark clothing and wild white hair, but already the tangle of branches had swallowed the shape of the man, and I couldn't be certain.
"Not unless he grew wings," James pointed out the obvious.
He was quite right, of course. No one could possibly have walked this far in such a short time. Still, I thought, the man that I'd just seen had looked familiar, just as the man from St. Govan's had looked familiar, though I couldn't for the life of me think where I would have met him. Take you care of the boy, he had said. I assumed he'd meant Christopher, since they'd just been talking to each other and it would have been quite natural for him to think I was Christopher's girlfriend. A word of friendly romantic advice, from an old man.
"Whoever it was," James remarked, "he's gone now." The wind hit my window and, over its laughter, I fancied I heard in the distance the faint silvery warning of St. Govan's bell.
*-*-*-*-*
It always amazed me how quickly the sun dropped in winter. Five o'clock brought the dark and a bone-chilling cold that breathed round my window and huddled me into my seat as James opened his car door. The fumes of the idling engine mingled sharply in the night air with the thicker scents of coal smoke and, from somewhere, roasting chicken.
"I'll just run in and fetch her," James said. "Keep the car warm."
Christopher woke as the door slammed. He'd slept all the way back from Stackpole, having dropped off the instant we'd left their aunt Effie's house. She had turned out to be a delightful old woman who, not being much of a drinker herself, thought that Scotch should be poured to the top of the tumbler. "And where are we now?" he asked, groggily.
I twisted round. "Owen and Dilys's."
"Terrific." He watched the front door open in a flood of light as Dilys came to answer James's knock. "We'll be stuck here the rest of the night, now. Just watch."
"Oh, I don't think so." I watched Dilys's gestures. "I believe Bridget's already gone home."
"I don't blame her. This place would be hell with a headache. That woman would drive me to drink." Returning Dilys's wave with a forced smile, he went on, "She used to be a nurse, you know."
"Oh, really?"
' 'God, yes. Sister bloody Casualty. You want to get her started on those stories, sometime," he said darkly. "I tell you, it's a treat."
It didn't surprise me that she'd been a nurse. In fact, it explained a good deal—her bustling, take-charge manner and her open impatience with what she perceived to be Elen's incompetence. And her tidiness, too. That would come from the nursing.
"Well," I said, "Owen seems quite happy with her, so she must have some good qualities."
"I can't think of any."
"Not even one?"
"Her cooking," he conceded, "is a cut above average."
"There, you see?"
"And she's quite good with children, believe it or not. It's a shame that her own is such a flaming idiot."
"She only has the one son?"
"One's enough, believe me. We're of an age. I used to have to play with him when we came down for summer holidays, and even then I couldn't stand him. And he's not the perfect angel Dilys makes him out to be. You know he got a young girl pregnant in the village, here? Quite the scandal, that was. Everything worked out all right, the baby was adopted, but Dilys damn near died of shame."
I could well imagine. She looked the sort of woman to whom shame was a palpable thing, a great burden to carry.
She was still in the doorway and talking to James, hands on hips, her face firm with righteousness. Christopher yawned and sat back again, closing his eyes. "We'll run out of petrol before she stops talking."
But a minute later James returned to join us in the car. "It seems we've missed a bit of excitement."
"Where's Bridget?" asked Christopher.
"She went home. Drank one of Dilys's healing teas and felt immediately better, so I'm told."
"Clever girl," said his brother.
"I doubt she found much peace and quiet back at Castle Farm," said James, stretching his words out for maximum effect. "Elen had some company this afternoon."
Christopher frowned. "Oh? What sort of company?"
"A couple of social workers from the local authority."
"Christ."
I felt something flip in my own breast. "They didn't take Stevie?"
"Not yet. Elen must have impressed them."
"Well of course she did." Christopher's words came out hard, like a slap. "Damn it all, she's a good mother."
"Anyway," James said, "I'm quite sure we'll get all the details from Bridget."
But Bridget, when we arrived back at the house, proved to be of little help.
"I was sleeping," she defended herself, stretching like a kitten in her chair beside the Christmas tree. Her eyes caught mine and glanced away, and I knew that she was lying. Besides, I had a good idea how she'd really spent her afternoon. "You'll want to ask Owen, he knows the whole story. Or Gareth—he's over there, now."
Something in the offhand way she spoke his name made me seek her gaze a second time. She shook her head faintly in warning as James crossed to pour himself a before-dinner brandy. "Oh, I'm sure I can wait," he said smoothly. "I've had most of the story already from Dilys."
"Well, I haven't." Christopher, not so patient, left us abruptly to check for himself.
James shook his head. "I can't get used to seeing Christopher this way, it's not his style. I mean, it wasn't so long ago he was trying every trick he knew to get in Elen's knickers, and now he's gone all noble ..."
"James," Bridget interrupted, "would you be a darling and fetch me a couple of aspirins?"
"Still have the headache?"
"Yes."
"Dilys's miracle cure didn't work?"
Bridget pulled a face. "Dilys's miracle cure tasted rather like pond scum. I had to tell her I felt better, or she would have made me drink the whole pot."
"Poor baby." He smiled. "Yes, I'll get you your aspirins. Where are they, upstairs? Right."
She waited until he had gone to recover. Shifting forwards in her chair, she rolled her eyes expressively. ' 'God, what a day!"
I took the chair opposite, stretching my legs. "I thought you liked a challenge."
"Challenge, hell. It took me an hour to break free of that woman, and then she only let me go because her bloody son rang. Although," she admitted, "she did send me off with a plate of mince pies to deliver to Gareth. That worked rather well with my plan. Now, if Owen says he saw me coming out of Gareth's cottage, I have an excuse."
I agreed that she'd been fortunate. "And was it all you'd hoped for?"
"What?"
"Your interlude with Gareth."
"No." Again the rolling eyes. "Why didn't you tell me the man was so dull?”
I lifted my eyebrows, surprised. "Well, I—"
"Honestly, Lyn, it took all of my effort to keep my eyes open. He just went on and on ..."
"About what?"
"Bloody everything. He knew your husband, did you know that?"
"Gareth knew Martin?"
She nodded. "They went to the same parties, apparently."
Which was possible enough, I thought, in retrospect. Martin had had several friends within the theatre circles. But still, I found it strange to be reminded just how small the world could be.
"Gareth didn't think much of him," Bridget said. "I bel
ieve the term he used was 'sodding little—' ."
"How did you get on to Martin?"
"Do you know, I can't remember. We must have been talking about you, mustn't we? But I really can't recall the conversation. Like I said, it was hard enough staying awake. Such a pity. He looks like a brooder—those dark eyes, and everything—but behind it all there's not a shred of passion. Hopeless," she pronounced him, with a sigh.
I couldn't help but wonder if she'd met the same man I had. I could think of many qualities that Gareth lacked, but passion, I suspected, wasn't one of them. "So that's that, then?"
"Mm. Mind you, there is still Christopher."
"And James."
She stiffened her jaw, holding back a yawn. "So did he take you to St. Govan's, or did you all get stuck in a pub somewhere?"
James, coming through the doorway, answered smoothly, "No, the pubs were closed, my dear. We stopped by Aunt Effie's instead. I couldn't find your aspirins, but I found these in the bathroom. Will they do?"
She took the bottle from him and shook two tablets on to her palm without reading the label. "At this point, I'll try anything." Ever the convincing actress, she drooped wearily on to the cushions, as though the simple act of swallowing had left her depleted. "What shall we do about supper tonight?"
James refilled his brandy glass and came to sit with us beside the tree. "Well, you can't be too ill, if you've still got your appetite."
"I always have my appetite."
I'd had one myself, half an hour ago, when we'd stopped in the street outside Dilys's. It was the chicken that had done it—the smell of roasting chicken always gave me that deliciously hollow Sunday morning feeling, making me want nothing more than to sit down and eat for the rest of the day. But that had been half an hour ago. I wasn't hungry now.
Some nagging emotion had intruded, blunting my senses. For one awful minute, I'd thought it might be jealousy of Bridget, only that was absurd. There was nothing of Bridget's I wanted. And then something twisted inside, like a knot, and I named the emotion with certainty: guilt. I felt guilty for not being here when the social workers had come to question Elen.
Not that I'd ever promised her I'd be her son's protector, but part of me was beginning to think he might actually need one. Because dragons, I knew, came in all shapes and sizes.
XXV
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep ...
W. B. Yeats, "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen"
I was wet through and shivering, chilled to the bone, but the child asleep on my shoulder felt warm, his face pressed to my neck and his breath coming evenly, trusting. The mist swirled and parted and showed me a flickering fire through the reeds at the water's black edge. I took a deep breath, pulling strength from the night, and pushed on, hearing only my rustling steps and the blood in my ears.
Through the long night of running I'd wished and I'd prayed for the screaming to stop, and now it had stopped and I found the dead silence more frightening. I no longer knew where the creature was—out in the mist somewhere, following, hunting us. Or maybe in front of us, stealthily waiting. Maybe it had set the fire itself, to draw us in.
The thought slowed my pace for a moment. I looked and saw nothing.
And then the flames leaped higher as a shadow passed before them and a woman's voice began to speak. A voice I knew.
"You have done well," she said, "but there is further yet to go."
She held out her hand and the firelight chased down the billowing skirt of her blue velvet gown.
I shook my head. "Please, I can't. I need to rest. Surely you could take the boy from here?"
Pale as porcelain, very proud, she faced me. "He has chosen you to help him. And the night is not yet over."
I took another dragging step towards her, struggling to lift my leaden arm, to reach her outstretched hand, but the wind rose wailing through the reeds and suddenly the fire, the woman, everything was gone, and in its place was only darkness and the cold and clinging mist. And as I pushed the wet hair from my eyes the ground began to tremble and a shriek of rage, inhuman, drowned the wind.
The child woke, crying. I gathered him closer and started to run.
*-*-*-*-*
I hoisted one foot on the stile and stood for a moment, quite still. Then I heard it again, the faint snap of a twig in the bracken behind me that told me I wasn't alone on the path.
It hadn't been too brilliant, I suppose, to choose to walk along the coast path in the first place, but I'd wanted the sea and the solitude, and this section of path that I hadn't yet walked had looked clearer and safer, at first, than the part that I'd been on before. Now though, I wished I had listened to Gareth's advice. He'd been right—this was probably not the best place for a woman alone. My heart gave a nervous leap into my throat and I swallowed it down, deliberately. Swinging my leg up and over the stile I hopped to the leaf-littered path and walked on, a little faster now, holding my chin at a brave angle. I tried humming, too, to show I wasn't worried, but it came out tense and unconvincing so I stopped. Besides which, I needed the breath.
The air here was heavy and thick with the smell of decay, like a greenhouse fallen into neglect, and I longed to be clear of the trees and the brambles, the ferns with their slapping wet leaves and the gorse prickles spearing the legs of my jeans. Another branch behind me snapped, and then another, and I broke into a half-run, bursting from the thicket with a backwards look as though I expected the horrible snout of the beast of my dreams to appear in pursuit, breathing fire.
So it was something of an anti-climax when, after a pause and a rustle, the undergrowth parted and out came a little white dog, with his stump of a tail wagging happily.
"Chance!" I couldn't control the relief in my voice as I bent to scratch his tufted ears. "What are you doing up here, hm? What are you doing?"
He snorted an answer and grovelled a moment, bellying into the mud. I looked up and waited for Gareth, but no one came out of the trees. "On your own, are you?" Standing, I smiled and turned, inviting the dog to follow. ' 'Well, you might as well stick with me, then, for protection."
I had rather more need of his protection than he had of mine. Although he was only a small dog, I knew he'd do damage to anyone trying to hurt me, and it helped my confidence tremendously to see him bouncing ahead of me, his stout legs a blur as he dug at the hillocks and trotted from side to side of the wandering path. We were close to the edge of the reddish-black cliff—uncomfortably close, in some places—with a view of the Haven that would have been stunning in sunshine. This morning a fog hovered over the flatly grey water and clung to the opposite shore, though I still could see partway across to a jagged rock island topped by a stern-looking building. A prison, perhaps, or a fortress.
"What is that, Chance?" I asked aloud. "What is it, do you know?"
"Thorn Island."
The voice spoke from under my feet, and I jumped. "God, don't do that! I might have gone over."
Perilously near the edge, I balanced myself and peered over as Gareth, fearlessly perched on a ledge just below me, his back to the cliff, answered without looking up. "I told you that walking the coast path alone wasn't safe."
"I'm not alone. I have Chance."
"He'd be no help at all. He's a right little coward."
"And I suppose what you're doing is safe, is it?"
"Perfectly." He did look up at that, a hint of challenge in his eyes. "I thought you weren't bothered by heights."
"I'm not."
"Well, then." He shifted over, holding up a vacuum flask. "There's plenty of room. And I even have coffee."
My pride, as always, triumphed over prudence. Not wanting to appear a coward, I lowered myself rather gingerly over the edge and sat beside him on the folded groundsheet he'd set on the coarse grass to keep out the damp.
"It's a communal cup," he said, rilling the lid of the flask with hot coffee and passing it over, "but I can promise you I'm not contagious."
r /> That, too, was a challenge. I took the makeshift mug and drank. "So," I said, fitting my back to the cold of the cliff face, "what exactly is Thorn Island?"
"Used to be a defensive fort, in the last century. Since then it's been a hotel, and a private home."
"That?" I looked again at the imposing building, all angles and solid grey stone. "Someone actually lived in it?"
' 'One of the most famous bits of our local history happened out there," he informed me. "The wreck of the Loch Shiel, a Scottish ship bound for Australia. 1894, I think it was, in January—nasty night. The ship broke apart on the Thorn Island rocks, and the Angle lifeboatmen managed to get all her crew and passengers ashore. Hell of a rescue, from all accounts." He drew up one knee and propped a booted foot against the rock. "I've been with the Angle lifeboat myself for three years, and I've seen some hard rescues, but nothing like that. Still, they had compensation. The Loch Shiel was carrying cases of whisky. They washed into shore the next morning, and everyone scrambled to get them before the customs men arrived."
"Just like Whisky Galore."
"Exactly. The bottles that didn't get drunk right away wound up buried, or bricked into walls. They still turn up from time to time, when people dig their gardens out or do a spot of renovating." He shrugged. "I haven't found any myself, though, for all the walls I've torn out of the cottage."
I wondered what he'd do with one, if he did find it. A recovering alcoholic must be tempted enough without having whisky bottles dropping from the rafters. But then, I didn't know. Perhaps the need for drinking passed, in time.
I looked away, before he caught me watching him. "So," I asked him, lightly, "do you come here often?"
He shook his head. "First time."
"Ah. And you're sure this ledge is sturdy?"
"Don't worry," he said. "If we get into trouble, the lifeboat's just round the corner."
Watching the waves swirling white round the rocks at the base of the cliff, I doubted that the lifeboat could do anything to help us, if we fell. Chance seemed to share my misgivings. Putting his head over the edge, he gave us a reproachful look before settling with a sigh and a thump on the path, so that only his nose showed.